


deviance from an absolute

by the bloodsucking brady bunch (Ejunkiet)



Series: deviance from an absolute [1]
Category: The Originals (TV), The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Builds on s5 interactions, F/M, Introspection, Slow Build, Speculative fiction, coming apart and coming back together, post- the originals, post-the vampire diaries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-06-01 11:39:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15142274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ejunkiet/pseuds/the%20bloodsucking%20brady%20bunch
Summary: “Just be honest with me, Caroline. You want this, too.”--Caroline Forbes and Klaus Mikaelson, over the years.





	1. part one: letters, mystic falls

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes, in the quiet moments between sunset and dawn, when her girls are asleep upstairs, and she sits alone, a glass of wine in hand, Caroline thinks of Klaus.

The letter arrives early on a Tuesday morning by overnight courier. It’s postmarked New Orleans.

She doesn’t open it until Wednesday afternoon.

 

\--

Sometimes, in the quiet moments between sunset and dawn, when her girls are asleep upstairs, and she sits alone, a glass of wine in hand, Caroline thinks of Klaus.

Klaus remains - an enigma. Centuries old, yet still so raw, a gaping wound of obsession and emotion, and after all this time, maybe she can understand his mania. No creature, dead or otherwise, could face centuries of feeling and remain fundamentally unchanged by it. 

Something to look forward to, she supposes. Either that, or the death of emotion altogether.

She’s facing a multitude of choices, each one worse than the last: the death of her husband, the death of her children, while the years leave her unmarked - and still, she can't decide which is worse.

When she closes her eyes, he stands before her. “It’s death, love. It’s always death.”

She can feel him at her shoulder, a lingering presence, too close for comfort, yet not close enough for any sort of significant contact. A breath, before he withdraws. She can still feel the memory of him. It’s stronger, on nights like this, and she misses Stefan with a pang so fierce that it hurts - he was always good at this, dealing with the past. Knowing when to let go. Moving on.

“Klaus.” She breathes out, slow and deep, lets her fingers trace the stem of the wineglass in her hand. In her minds eyes, he takes the seat opposite her, cubes of ice swirling in a whiskey filled crystal tumbler. “I’ve never understood. Why did you choose me?”

He smiles into his glass, and it’s languid, self-indulgent, amused. It’s charming and he knows it. “Why not?”

“That won’t work on me.” His smile falters for a moment, before his eyes narrow, and placing his glass on the table between them, he leans forward. The smiles returns and it’s darker, filthier than before.

“Are you sure?”

He closes the distance between them, perched against the coffee table, until she can smell that comforting mix of whiskey and leather from the straps he wears around his neck, until she can imagine the heat of him. He takes the glass from her hands.

In the hushed quiet of her living room, she indulges in it, the idea.  The fantasy. A slip of her morality – as his hand reaches out to trace the line of her cheek and he brushes his mouth against hers, a gentle caress that is at odds with the violence that she expects from him. She doesn’t turn him away, and he moves to her jaw, her throat, pressing slow, open mouth kisses to every patch of open skin until he reaches her clavicle.

“Just be honest with me, Caroline. You want this, too.”

He grins against her skin, and she can feel the sharp points of his teeth as his hands snake up her shirt, taking all that he can, and she lets him, she lets him have it all.

When she opens her eyes, the memory of him is gone and she is alone.

\--

Her eyes find the letter on the mantelpiece, and even in the dim light that filters into the room from the streetlamp outside, she can still make out the elegant script.

_Yours, Klaus._

Once upon a time, she would have been tempted. Like Elena, she would have followed the flame, been enthralled by it. He would have consumed her.

But ultimately, she won't call. Caroline will not be devoured like Elena was by the men she loved.

She finishes her glass, leaves it on the table as she heads upstairs to her room. She locks the door behind her.

\--

Her reply is drafted, but never sent: _do you still think of me the same way, Klaus?_


	2. part two: paris

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s been seven years since the letter when Caroline gets a call.

It’s been seven years since the letter when Caroline gets a call.

The next day, she arrives in Paris with little more than a family name and a partial address for an estate on the outskirts of the city.

It’s an old family, with generations stretching far back across the centuries. It doesn’t take her long to locate the grounds of the château, perched on a hill overlooking the city. It’s a beautiful estate, surrounded by vineyards and set apart from the bustle of metropolitan life.

When she reaches the house, the front door hangs on its hinges, a deathly stillness in the air. It’s too quiet for such a large estate.

She doesn’t have to step inside to realise she is too late.

\--

She finds him on the steps of a small, privately owned art gallery that's tucked away in a corner of the city, secluded, and that's for the best, she thinks, given the nature of her business here.

It's been fifteen years since she has seen Klaus Mikaelson.

There's a smile on his lips: death sits at his feet, and his mouth is stained bloody red. Her hand is at his throat and the cries of his victims echo throughout the halls of the gallery - and yet his eyes are soft on hers when he speaks.

“Hello, love.”

She holds his gaze for a long moment before her grip relaxes. “Klaus.”

There’s blood on the collar of his shirt, and when she takes in the scene around them, she realises she recognises it. This is the Klaus she knew once, the one that terrorised Mystic Falls, and it’s almost startling to see him return to the familiar patterns of cruelty after nearly a decade.

It’s not without cause. Rebekah had briefed her on the details of what had happened with Elijah, and she can see the impact it’s had on him, the hard edge to his movement; his actions here notwithstanding.

Klaus has always been better at vengeance and it's clear to see he’s still at war. Bodies litter the steps of the gallery, blood stains on stones over three centuries old, but there's something methodical about the scene, as staged as it is, gore and viscera splattering across the tile.

She watches him as he leads her through the rooms of the gallery, navigating the carnage with ease, and begins to suspect that there's more to it - more to this, all of this.

Klaus may not be as lost as he first appears.

“This killing spree you’re on - it’s not random, is it?” Her words draw Klaus to a stop, and he turns back to meet her stare. He holds her gaze, lips quirked at the corners, and the details start to come together. There’s a purpose to all this violence. “You have a list.”

“Our family,” he says instead, sidestepping the point, “has many enemies.”

The pieces click into place. “Elijah.”

Her image of Klaus shifts, again: the kaleidoscope of personas that make him what he is. He can be many things, myth and monster among them, but underneath all the faces he wears, there's a man. A man who can be cruel as well as kind, who can love with an intensity so fierce, it frightens her.

But this loyalty - that devotion - this, she has always admired.

\--

But she can't forget what he is.

\--

The sightless eyes of the dead stare up at her until she covers them with a dust sheet, but the room still stinks of death, of the blood cooling against the ancient furniture. It should sicken her more than it does, but she’d come to terms with the conditions of her immortality years ago, and she’s well aware of the cost.

Klaus watches her as she takes stock of the room and gets to work, tearing another sheet into sections to soak up the blood. She can feel the weight of his gaze, lingering, almost predatory.

He steps in close when she approaches him, cloths in hand, and gestures to the bodies.

“I thought there'd be more.”

When she glances back at him, his eyes are bright, a smile twisting up his lips.

“I didn't know we were keeping track.”

She holds out a cloth and his smile grows as he takes it. His fingertips brush her palm, hot against her skin until she pulls her hand away. His eyes never leave hers as they move to the glass cabinets lining the walls, and she keeps her gaze pointedly forward until he glances away.

(He’s not good for her, and he knows it.)

His tone is nonchalant when he says, “as flattered as I am for the company, I have to ask: why are you here?”

“Your sister sent me. It's Hope.” He inhales softly and she gentles her tone almost without realising it, glancing back to meet his gaze. “You're needed back in New Orleans.”

His eyes are wide, and he looks almost - vulnerable. He swallows as he glances away, fingers clenching around the cloth in his grip.

“I understand.”

She watches him as he steps back from the glass and scrubs a hand across his face, leaving smears of crimson on his cheeks. It’s striking, this moment; the juxtaposition of what he is and what he could be.

She brushes the thought aside; buries it deep.

\--

Seeing him in the flesh like this, after all this time, forces her to admit something: they have a connection, a connection that remains, even with the years that span between them.

When Klaus leaves the city later that evening, he leaves a trail of destruction in his wake. Caroline stays: she still has work in the city, her little stint as a private investigator aside. As she navigates the pavilions of the city, she hears the bells of churches, the cries of the families as the city mourns the massacre.

They serve as a lasting reminder of who and what Klaus Mikaelson is, and her resolve firms.


	3. part three: new orleans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the not the way it was meant to end.

Time moves on, stretching out before her in an endless stream of years. Her girls are grown, the school flourishes, and she finds herself with an abundance of time. Eternity doesn’t seem that far beyond the realms of her imagination, anymore.

Inevitably, she finds herself drawn back to New Orleans.

This time, it's different: it's not some plot, some unforeseen consequence of a decision made centuries earlier. It's family; his family and by some strange twist of fate, it's hers also - her student, his daughter, her ward.

\--

Klaus Mikaelson is an enigma, all smiles and teeth when he turns up in her office, and even after all these years, she still finds herself caught up in the push and pull of him.

It's been over a decade since Mystic Falls has seen a member of the original family, but the wounds are still fresh, the memories rooted deep. They may have forgotten his face, but his actions are well-remembered, and she notices the care he takes with his name in the confines of the school.

It's not enough for Alaric, and if she's being honest, it's not enough for her either, not with what he's requesting.

"You need to give me more details, Klaus."

He follows her outside when she goes for air, his expression edged with a sharp emotion she can't quite place. He looks smaller, somehow, in her late husband's jacket, and she realises there's something more to this request, something he's not saying.

"What is this magic you're planning on using?"

Klaus waits a long moment before speaking, his expression carefully neutral. "You've heard of the Hollow, I presume?"

Her breath catches in her throat. Klaus watches her react to this, his eyes like steel as he holds her gaze and continues, "it's killing my daughter. I mean to seperate it from her and take it into another vessel before it does."

"How?"

The smile that twists his lips is vicious, with no room for any other emotion than spite and anger, and so she doesn't recognise the subterfuge behind it, the details he withholds from his plan.

It's only later that she learns the truth, the whole truth - and by then, it's almost too late.

\--

( _Caroline acts. It's what she does when faced with an impossible situation- she acts, does anything except just sit by and let this play out the way Klaus wants it to._

_It doesn't take her long to track down the number, her fingers trembling in their grip around the phone. Elijah’s voice is soft when he answers the call, lower timbre edged with concern._

_“Caroline. Is everything alright?”_

_“It’s Klaus. He's going to take the hollow into himself and use the white oak stake."_

_She hears a sharp intake of breath, before -_

_"thank you."_

_\- the line cuts off, and she's left with a dial tone and a blank screen, and the quiet in the secluded confines of her office is almost suffocating- )_

\--

It's only at the end, when Caroline returns to New Orleans to settle a longstanding debt, that she can finally put into words the changes she sees in Klaus.

He's older. Somehow more damaged, but also stitched back together. Still angry, but the fiery heat of it has been tempered, by time, by regret. He’s a brilliant beacon amidst the mesh of people and colour of New Orleans, as much a part of the city he helped build as the streets themselves.

In this moment, he's all too human.

They have both lost much over the years - too much. She can’t imagine the weight of that; and a part of her understands his resignation, his surrender to this.

Another part of her prickles at the thought of losing someone else, whatever they may be - starcrossed almost lovers, enemy turned friend.

(This is the not the way it was meant to end.)

But in the end, it doesn’t matter how she feels.

Klaus Mikaelson is going to sacrifice himself to save the life of his daughter.

She can’t stop him - she won’t. Not when he’s doing the right thing -- when he’s proving himself to be the man she thought he could be.

But she can’t watch him die.

\--

She kisses him anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An end to this series of interconnected klaroline one shots. This leads directly into the final installment, 'too little too late'.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm new to the klaroline scene, please find me at my tumblr (ejunkiet) and talk to me about it!


End file.
